Quotes & Sayings About Filmmaking

For me, poetry has a strong link to my filmmaking. My films learn from my poetry. In poetry, you're free. You start in the corner and you don't know where it leads you. I have no message, I have nothing I want to tell, I just start and I see where it leads, and it's a big surprise and relief if it's good. That's the ideal state for filmmaking. — Jorgen Leth

As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless - and absolutely essential. — William Goldman

I don't know if I would call it therapy, but filmmaking is really the only thing I know how to do.For me, making movies is a way to bring on change for myself, and I really enjoy that part. — Takashi Miike

I like to do stuff real and practical and in camera, as much as possible. I like old school filmmaking. — David Ayer

I got into filmmaking in order to tell very personal stories, and in this day and age, the opportunity seems all the more precious. — Ira Sachs

Directing, editing, and everything about filmmaking has definitely changed me as an actor. — James Franco

I want to try and be as involved in the art of filmmaking as possible. I feel that the only way to really do that is to take on as many roles as possible, whether it be as an actor, an editor, a director, a cinematographer. — Joe Swanberg

I was a big fan of John Cassavetes, his wife, Gena Rowlands, and that era of filmmaking which was about realism and which represented the antithesis of the dreamy escapism you found in musicals. — Carmen Ejogo

If you cannot live with hope and create with intention or be kind to a stranger, bury your head. You are not living at all. — Dawn Garcia

I think the art of filmmaking is something you learn through actions, by doing it, not by learning theories. And as you do it, your mind starts to change. — Alejandro Jodorowsky

I really got into filmmaking through photography. — Todd Phillips

You can't turn up at college in stilettos and say you're gonna be a filmmaker. In the college, they were teaching me avant-garde filmmaking, where I had to make films that were, like, an hour long about nothing. I just refused to do it. — M.I.A.

Adaptations are fun for me because they connect to the idea of filmmaking I had when I was a kid. I would see a movie and think: 'I'm gonna make that movie.' — Noah Baumbach

There is no filmmaking legislation because distributors are not interested in sharing their money with the film industry - for instance, by giving a percentage of ticket sales back to filmmakers. — Andrzej Wajda

I suppose once in a while, a filmmaker makes a movie that's more than just a sum of its parts, more than good acting or good filmmaking. It's something else that has nothing to do with what you've done. This is in 1999, made by people in 1999 for people in 1999 about people in 1999. — Sam Mendes

I always say that I am a big fan of films but I am an even bigger fan of the filmmaking craft. — Fede Alvarez

Most filmmaking is about shaking hands and just starting. — Abel Ferrara

But I would say maybe just from an actress's perspective, probably 'Woman Under the Influence' is the best movie of all time. The style of filmmaking and the performances ... you don't feel like you're watching a film. — Olivia Thirlby

When I started making films I just decided "I'm the filmmaking equivalent of a garage band and I'll just make my garage band movies." But even the same musicians from garage bands would go to my movies and you could tell what they liked from the way that they dressed and they would be the first ones to walk out. — Guy Maddin

The relationship with actor and director is probably closer to theater, in that, when we record the dialogue, there is very little in the way of the creative collaboration - no cameras, lighting or even locations. Then, once we record, the post process is very similar to the post flow in filmmaking - editing, sound design, mixing, etc. At the end of the day, it's all about storytelling and honing in on a tone by developing a rhythm and structure that suits the storytelling. — Glenn McQuaid

The willful amnesia afflicting the sciences in general contrasts sharply with the importance given to memory by the humanities. Literature, philosophy, politics, and the visual arts, including photography and filmmaking, feed on memory. Practitioners of the humanities need memory to deepen and refine their thinking. — James Hillman

I believe that filmmaking - as, probably, is everything - is a game you should play with all your cards, and all your dice, and whatever else you've got. So, each time I make a movie, I give it everything I have. I think everyone should, and I think everyone should do everything they do that way. — Francis Ford Coppola

When I was in New York I heard many people saying that the independent film industry was in big trouble. I was reflecting on this when I came home. Realizing that ever since I started filmmaking, people have being saying that. But somehow it keeps going. Filmmakers keep going. We need stories to make sense of the world and some people like me are driven to tell them. I have faith this will always be possible. — Andrea Arnold

I see myself as an explorer more than a storyteller. A great storyteller, in control of her craft, must be the same person when she finishes telling a story as she was at the start. But I want to be transformed by my filmmaking, by the journey I take. — Joshua Oppenheimer

I'm not interested in being famous or anything, but I'm definitely interested in expressing emotions, and acting and filmmaking can be great outlets for that. Filmmaking is an incredible art. — Ellar Coltrane

I love editing. It's one of my favorite parts about filmmaking. — Steven Spielberg

Stories have tangents; they open up and become different things. You can still have a structure, but you should leave room to dream. If you stay true to your ideas, filmmaking becomes an inside-out, honest kind of process. And if it's an honest thing for you, there's a chance that people will feel that, even if it's abstract. — David Lynch

When I was a kid, I was always going to bed creating a story, and that was the birth of filmmaking for me. I would like going to the dream-state by telling the story to someone else in my mind. That was my imaginary friend; it was an imaginary audience listening to my story. — Denis Villeneuve

I feel like the beauty of this age of filmmaking is that there are more tools at your disposal, but it doesn't mean that any of these new tools are automatically the right tools. And there are a lot of situations where we went very much old school and in fact used CG more to remove things than to add things. — J.J. Abrams

The only safe thing in filmmaking is to take a chance. — Mike Nichols

Filmmaking is a real craft. — Sean Durkin

Basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking. — Lars Von Trier

I think that directing is the ultimate martyred task of filmmaking, that it has nobility to it. It takes three years to make a film, for the most part. I think it requires the attentiveness of a mother hen. — Diane Lane

My main concern is quality and I think there is quality to be found in all categories of filmmaking. — Brad Pitt

To be animating at the same time, it's the ultimate freedom in filmmaking because you can literally put anything on the screen that you can imagine. — Don Hertzfeldt

[on his satisfaction as an artist] In terms of cinema and filmmaking, there are certainly the unexpected gifts that the actors bestow on you. Film is always a question of compromises with respect to what you originally intended. — Michael Haneke

The excitement about independent filmmaking is that they're a little more open to taking chances. The studios are a little more careful, as far as who they choose for their film and what they're known for and staying in the genre because they know what works. — Malin Akerman

The difficulty with the present state of affairs is that there is no legislation on the sources of funding for the Polish film industry. There is no legislation concerning filmmaking. And, there is no legislation on television that would be beneficial to filmmaking. — Andrzej Wajda

I intend more of a kinship with silent films than more modern film. I like the old cinema. My films are more of a hybrid - a different style of filmmaking to what I call talking head movies. Some people don't get it. Especially the more academic types. — George Lucas

I would say that when I came into this chapter of my filmmaking career, starting with 'The Fighter,' there was this sense that you have to go from your instincts and you have to go from your gut, and you have to not hesitate and you have to not hedge. — David O. Russell

There are two kinds of filmmaking: Hitchcock's (the film is complete in the director's mind) and Coppola's (which thrives on process). For Hitchcock, any variation from the complete internal idea is seen as a defect. The perfection already exists. Coppola's approach is to harvest the random elements that the process throws up, things that were not in his mind when he began. — Walter Murch

Filmmaking is the ultimate team sport. — Michael Keaton

The idea of working with Steven Spielberg was very attractive. He's such a master. He knows the language of the camera and of filmmaking, which gives him a great freedom. — Max Von Sydow

The varying physical characteristics of the actors may also necessitate changes. Sean Connery is six feet four. Dustin Hoffman isn't. — Sidney Lumet

The "If you build it, they will come" approach to filmmaking has always been helpful to me. — Nina Jacobson

Hollywood industry people are very spoiled. I don't think they can adjust to the insane, no-money, super-hard working tradition of Japanese filmmaking. I don't think any American can go through that. They don't want to work more than twelve hours and they want Saturday and Sunday off. — Ryuhei Kitamura

Young filmmakers are supposed to be the young turks that advance the current state of filmmaking ideas. — Reginald Hudlin

My filmmaking really began with technology. It began through technology, not through telling stories, because my 8mm movie camera was the way into whatever I decided to do. — Steven Spielberg

Daniel Craig is brilliant as Bond: there is no question about that. But it's a different Bond. It's the cross pollination of 'The Bourne Identity' and 'James Bond;' that kind of style of filmmaking. — Pierce Brosnan

I love filmmaking, and I love the process. And I would rather do nothing else. It's a privilege to be able to paint such big pictures, so to speak. — Bryan Singer

I never fought, I never learned kung fu or boxing, I never went into these sportif competitions. I wouldn't cross the ocean. I think it's ridiculous to take such risk. But look, people love to do that. But I was not afraid of doing things I wished to do. I did not think that woman would be restrained. I never saw that, especially not in filmmaking, where you don't have to be strong. — Agnes Varda

I've had weird, weird acting jobs. Low-budget filmmaking where you find yourself in really bizarre places. — Gillian Jacobs

Among today's directors I'm of course impressed by Steven Spielberg and Scorsese, and Coppola, even if he seems to have ceased making films, and Steven Soderbergh - they all have something to say, they're passionate, they have an idealistic attitude to the filmmaking process. Soderbergh's Traffic is amazing. Another great couple of examples of the strength of American cinema is American Beauty and Magnolia. — Ingmar Bergman

I love the grandiosity of Hollywood movies, and even in independents, I love the canvas you can tell your story on. I love fiction filmmaking, you really feel like you're creating something. — George Hickenlooper

The machinery of filmmaking is really slow and ponderous and I don't know how you're going to make it any faster with any of the systems, whether it's Red, Sony, or whatever. — Michael Seresin

You know what it is, the reason so many 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds are saying 'Drive' is their favorite movie is that 'Drive' is a 90-minute trip into what a lot of seventies filmmaking was. It encapsulates the best of a certain kind of style, and a style that a lot of people haven't seen before, with the music and the way it's edited. — Albert Brooks

Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust, ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head. — Julia Leigh

One of the nice things about the world of filmmaking is that you make friends in the business. Sometimes directors feel a script needs something, but they're not sure what it is, so they show it to a friend; if the friend is a writer, he ends up kicking around with that script for a while. — Tom Stoppard

If we do our jobs well and throw in a little evangelizing, we can make sound as important a part of filmmaking as it should be. — Gary Rydstrom

Filmmaking is not a balancing act, although some directors think it is. I don't believe in it. I like ups and downs. They're the best way to translate my feelings to the screen. — Takashi Miike

I love filmmaking, but I decided to go to drama school because I thought that when I'm 60 and looking back on my life, if acting hadn't been a part of it, I would hate myself. — Lupita Nyong'o

Celebrate your victories and mark your defeats. Ultimately documentary filmmaking is not a job, it's a calling. — Pamela Yates

Next to filmmaking and stuff like that, skiing is my favorite thing. I go skiing in Aspen - everywhere. I have been skiing since I was 4. I just love it. I feel so free. — Sage Stallone

Some people live, eat and breathe art, and they love acting and filmmaking. I've got other loves. I love animals. I love teaching. I love kids. That's always something in the back of my mind. — Kay Panabaker

Documentaries have always inspired me in narrative filmmaking. — Griffin Dunne

If I were a moviemaker I'd set about hunting sunsets. — Julio Cortazar

The process of filmmaking is very musical, you get into the rhythm and the rhythmics of how someone is, especially with Woody Allen who is very much into body language and body movement. — Charlotte Rampling

Editing is not a part of the filmmaking process I've ever been privy to as an actress. — Vera Farmiga

Without art, a film is pure wastage of time and resources. — Abhijit Naskar

My first teacher was Steven Spielberg. I worked on Amazing Stories. That was my first job, as a writer and as a story editor. Watching him and his command of the tools of filmmaking, and his admiration for writing and the story itself, was the greatest lesson I ever had. — Mick Garris

I don't think I can speak of the achievements of Indian cinema because it's so large next to me. It's not stopping. It's ever-growing. We are going towards the right direction. We are evolving as a filmmaking industry as actors, directors, producers, singers, musicians. Everybody just pushing the boundaries. — Ranbir Kapoor

Filmmaking is not the work of the weak-minded. It may not be rocket science, but it requires ten times more strength of the mind than that. — Abhijit Naskar

There's such good people out there where there filmmaking world is alive. — Josh Lucas

I've learned a great deal about a certain type of filmmaking. But I have ambitions toward another type of filmmaking that I haven't been allowed to engage in yet. — Shia Labeouf

There is no guaranteed formula. And that's one of the interesting things about filmmaking. You could put $115 million in, and it doesn't guarantee success. — Michelle Yeoh

If you think about it, episodic filmmaking has not been something that people have really done. — Tony Gilroy

Having been an actor, I always want to leave room for the actors to find their comfort zone, so I don't like to be too rigid in how I plan my shots. It's different if you have weeks to rehearse and you can rehearse on your sets or in your locations and you can plan that out with your actors, but in modern independent filmmaking, you don't really have that time. You have to have a certain level of improvisation. — Eric Balfour

As a film director I like to have the actors create their own close-ups. It's an older style of filmmaking. — Stanley Tucci

I have been incredibly fortunate to be able to work with good directors and for me it's not really a plan each time I'm on a set with one of them; I think about what I can learn from them because I'm very aware that my filmmaking skills are very modest. — Sacha Baron Cohen

My understanding of films was just as much as any young girl who watches Bollywood films. I had no idea about the whole process of filmmaking, about dialogue writing, scripts, screenplay etc. I had probably gone to two or three film shoots in my childhood. — Rani Mukerji

What I always tell people is ... Unless you are so passionate about filmmaking that you would rather live out of your car than not do it, find something else to do as a career and do filmmaking as a hobby. This industry is one of the hardest to break into and be successful. It takes a lot of passion and dedication for it to get anywhere ... — Ryan Connolly

I'm really impotent against the overwhelming bleakness of the universe and the only thing I can do is my little gift [filmmaking] and do it the best I can, which is cold comfort. — Woody Allen

My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected onto a screen, come to life again like flowers in water. — Robert Bresson

Filmmaking is about moments. In real life, things might take six months, a year, but [in filmmaking] you have to create the moment where it happened. — Morten Tyldum

I like the idea of chance coming into filmmaking, in shooting, in editing, and I do make space in my rules of game for chance. — Jorgen Leth

Part of filmmaking is always a guessing game, and part of it is always a game of trust. — Greg Kinnear

I was really disappointed that Warner Bros. didn't think highly enough of my film or my filmmaking to ask me to make the new Superman. — Richard Donner

Filmmaking has always involved pairs: a director coupled with a producer, a director alongside an editor ... The notion of couples is not foreign to cinema. — Luc Dardenne

Usually, we have some of those nostalgic moments like, "Oh my god, I can't believe we survived that day," because filmmaking is such a wild roller coaster ride. — Catherine Hardwicke

Loving photography and wanting to be a painter, it all ended up in the process of filmmaking. It's strange professionally be to connected because it connects you to architecture, it connects you to painting, it connects you to writers, to actors. It connects you to really all of the arts. — Wim Wenders

I think filmmaking is a strange animal because it's anti-Democratic and collective at the same time, but I think it's all about not trying to know everything better than everybody else but making the right choices. — Niels Arden Oplev

I'm better suited to be a director, I think. I see myself as the general author. I hate the word 'auteur,' because it sounds so solitary when filmmaking is anything but solitary. — Cary Fukunaga

I love writing, but I stopped because I felt I was more effective approaching filmmaking from a different vantage point. — Jack Nicholson

Meanwhile, back at reality..."- G.Lucas — Robert Lynn Asprin

I came to filmmaking because it's my passion. I decided I can't have it distorted or marred by someone else deciding what it should be. — Shane Carruth

Filmmaking is a huge privilege; it's not brain surgery. It's art, and art is supposed to be an enjoyable process, and it is an enjoyable experience for me. — Lake Bell

There is a great tradition of independent filmmaking in the U.S. that I absolutely respect. There's some wonderful stuff that comes out in this country against all the odds. — Mike Leigh

Investigative journalism has been relegated to a very, very tiny space in America. We don't really have much investigative journalism left. And the last refuge for it is documentary filmmaking. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I usually get involved in the interviews about the animators and the filmmaking in general, because I had a chance.I got to know, not only Marc Davis, but Frank Thomas, Artie Johnson, Ward Kimball, all these great animators, and just ask them all these questions about how they did certain things, what their trials and errors were, the ups and downs. — Andreas Deja

In the end, you really want to make the best film that you can, and in the reality of the filmmaking world, you have things like budgets. — Nicholas Sparks